Incendies (15) 131 mins **
French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s drama landed an Oscar nomination earlier this year in what was widely regarded as the weakest Best Foreign Film category for some while. It’s not hard to see why Incendies caught the Academy’s eye – Villeneuve tackles big historical themes in an unrelentingly serious fashion – but it packages up the unresolved woes of the family at its centre as a plodding genealogical scavenger hunt.
After the death of their Palestinian immigrant mother, a pair of Quebecois twins enter their lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. The surprises contained therein inspire the deceased’s daughter Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) to journey back to the Middle East to find out precisely who her mother was, cueing flashbacks charting the latter’s progress from student to political assassin. Meanwhile, son Simon (Maxim Gaudette) ventures forth in search of the brother he never knew he had.
While his film isn’t quite as simple-minded as Julian Schnabel’s Miral, Villeneuve nevertheless goes after the Arab-Israeli conflict like a kid at the pick ‘n’ mix counter, grabbing fistfuls of atrocities – the rape and abuse of prisoners, children being shot in the head – to get an effect the wan performances and wildly coincidental plotting can’t even begin to get near. Imagine an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? bulked out with added maths and carnage, and set to a soundtrack of Radiohead at their most, shall we say, challenging. Yup, it’s about that much fun.
Incendies opens in selected cinemas from today.
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